Diálogo
Volume 17 Number 1 Article 4
2014
Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Swarthmore College
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Recommended Citation Camacho de Schmidt, Aurora (2014) "Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar," Diálogo: Vol. 17 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo/vol17/iss1/4
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Latino Research at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in Diálogo by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Swarthmore College
I live to the rhythm of my country and I cannot remain on the sidelines. I want to be there. I want to be part of it. I want to be a witness. I want to walk arm in arm with it. I want to hear it more and more, to cradle it, to carry it like a medal on my chest. Elena Poniatowska1
members. I have found no full critical treatments in Abstract: Description of an Honors literature seminar academic journals of this most recent novel written by focused on a selection of texts by prominent Mexican Poniatowska, but some reviews are extremely helpful.3 writer Elena Poniatowska, including critical strategies While the French translation was published in September involved in preparation, work required by students, and of 2012, an English one is not yet available.4 Poniatowska’s creative strategies in depicting rebellious women and other socially marginalized figures. A special THE SEMINAR focus on the biographical novel Leonora (2011) illustrates Many years ago, as I first contemplated the challenge the pedagogical possibilities of this novel, and students’ of offering a seminar on a topic in Latin American liter- analytical responses to the reading. ature to undergraduates, I thought the task was almost impossible. It seemed to me that most of our advanced Key Terms: Elena Poniatowska, Honors seminars, students majoring or minoring in Spanish still needed Mexican literature, Mexican art, Leonora Carrington, foundational courses, more than a focused exploration contextual mapping, novelistic montage of a single theme or author. I was also aware of the considerable time undergraduates must devote both to Spanish-language training and the development of writing he spring of 2013 was my last semester as an and analytical skills, before they are ready to do advanced Tactive professor in the classroom, so in addition work in literature. In spite of those concerns, the experi- to teaching a favorite introductory course, I chose to bid ence of teaching seminars changed my perspective. The farewell to Swarthmore College by teaching a seminar I had Spanish Program at Swarthmore College has enjoyed developed in 2008, “Elena Poniatowska: la hija de México.”2 wonderful results from the seminars it teaches every spring I was born in Mexico and retain Mexican citizenship. For semester, rotating among the program’s faculty. over fifty years, “Mexico’s daughter” has always spoken to A seminar, the most advanced course at the college, me about “the rhythm of our country.” I am grateful for receives two credits, while other courses generally receive Elena Poniatowska and her work, and I read her critically. one. This means that seminar work is the equivalent of I have translated two of her non-fiction books and studied half of a student’s load for the semester. Participation is most of the others. I wanted to pay homage to the writer limited to a maximum of twelve students, almost always and witness of history, and at the same time, share her juniors and seniors. Professors admit students to seminars literary gift with a group of strong students. on the basis of previous preparation, but in the Modern In this essay I would like to talk about why reading Languages and Literatures Department admission is critically and collectively this particular author in an not limited to majors and minors. Seminar topics have undergraduate seminar can provide a deeply enriching included Mario Vargas Llosa, Federico García Lorca, and experience, and why the novel Leonora (2011) offers great Jorge Luis Borges. Over the years, I have taught three opportunities for fruitful discussions in the classroom. I seminars: “Visiones narrativas de Carlos Fuentes,” “Poesía will conclude with the ideas of two students who wrote y política: los mundos de Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz y papers about it, and the general reactions of seminar Ernesto Cardenal,” and the one on Elena Poniatowska.5
Diálogo Articles 9 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014
Students are delighted by the opportunity to get to weeks to reading short stories and foundational critical know an author in depth, and to see how substantial work before seminar members had to present papers to literary criticism enriches the adventure of reading and the class. In that period, we also studied the Mexican analyzing essays and narrative within a coherent corpus. Revolution and its aftermath, and worked on some aspects The sociopolitical context of texts offers another important of Latin American feminism. As the semester progressed, source of intellectual curiosity and excitement during students received introductory notes for all texts and a few the term. In fact, Latin American Studies minors and questions to guide their reading. Sometimes I also sent special majors are frequently drawn to these seminars, them specialized vocabulary lists in advance, knowing contributing to their interdisciplinary dimension. much of the vernacular contained in certain narratives In all seminars, participants become a learning team. or essays would not be included in dictionaries. In my particular pedagogical practice, they write papers From the fourth week on, two students presented individually, but prepare research and oral presentations their individual papers on a given text at each session;8 in pairs. In class, they often subdivide in smaller groups for naturally the rest of the class had also read the book. special collaborations, for example, providing an answer For each book by Poniatowska, there were at least two to a question about the text under consideration and then papers and sometimes three of them. The theses in those testing it against other groups’ results. Members rely on papers structured a good part of class discussion. One each other and come to know their peers’ strengths, such as day before the seminar met, everyone received the papers familiarity with Mexican culture or history, knowledge of electronically, read them critically, and prepared written a particular literary perspective, a knack for remembering questions and comments for their authors, and occa- narrative detail, or the ability to articulate an incisive sionally for the rest of the class. Questions were usually critical point. This was clearly visible in class discussions, posted in Moodle, the course management system. At and—I was glad to see—in some final essays of my last each session throughout the semester, at least two pairs of seminar, where several members quoted other students’ students gave Power Point presentations on critical articles previous papers. Even when not all students operate at the from academic journals, followed by in-class discussion. same level of linguistic or analytical proficiency, they are Students identified those articles on their own, through all able to make significant contributions to each other’s the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) database, or understanding, and certainly to mine. other electronic search engines, but I also uploaded some Seminars are part of the flagship Honors Program articles on Moodle. While the articles could be written in at Swarthmore College, introduced in 1922.6 They were Spanish or English, all presentations and seminar work designed to provide an experience of independent learning were conducted in Spanish. In addition to Poniatowska’s to students eager and able to participate in an intense texts, a collection of nearly sixty critical books was in colloquium on a given field, and develop such mastery reserve at McCabe Library throughout the term, expanding of that field that a scholar from a different college or uni- students’ sources of articles.9 Librarian Pam Harris was versity could examine the student, in writing and orally, always at hand to aid anyone who needed help. at the end of his or her eighth semester. As the program We read texts in this order: De noche vienes (1979), has evolved, seminars have been opened to students who Tlapalería (2003), Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (1978), do not participate in Honors examinations. Our seminar La noche de Tlatelolco (1971), Hasta no verte, Jesús mío had ten students, and only one was in Honors.7 (1969), Tinísima (1992), Paseo de la Reforma (1996), Las Each student wrote two essays and a more extensive siete cabritas (2000), and finally Leonora. In 2008, we had term paper. Students expressed preferences about the book included La piel del cielo (2001) and El tren pasa primero they wished to work on, and I respected their wishes as best (2007), but I exchanged them for the last two for my final as I could, assigning two of Poniatowska’s books to each seminar, although it was a difficult choice.10 of them. They had plenty of freedom to choose a critical In addition, students made illustrated oral presen- angle on the texts they would write about. The subject tations, individually prepared, on a selected text of their matter of the term paper, however, asked them to identify choice written by Poniatowska on visual representations a critical perspective that could be applied to two or more of Mexico in the photography of Mariana Yampolsky, of the works read in the seminar. We devoted three initial Graciela Iturbide, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Kent Klich, or
10 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
Héctor García. After the end of the semester, the Division this undertaking. of Education of the Philadelphia Museum of Art creat- • The invitation of these texts to problematize canonical ed a mini-exhibit with photographs by Tina Modotti, feminism. The resistance of the texts to being easily Mariana Yampolsky, and Graciela Iturbide, and posters explained and tamed. from “Taller de Gráfica Popular”11 for my ten students • The author’s special attention to the arts of photography and me to examine in a closed session. Afterwards, our and painting. Her identification with some foreign lunch at the Museum was a delightful way to end our women artists who have made their home in Mexico spring semester venture. and for whom art has been a saving grace. • The indispensable presence of a historicized Mexico Great writers invent worlds, City in the author’s narrative, and particularly in her and the breadth and quality book-length journalistic essays in which ordinary people speak after disastrous events, such as the Mexican army of criticism on Poniatowska shows assault on demonstrating students (1968) and the earth- how big and textured her world is. quake that devastated a central part of the city (1985). • The role of U.S. academia in the reception, consumption, WHY ELENA PONIATOWSKA and critical evaluation of Poniatowska’s literary corpus. At 81 years of age, having lived in Mexico since 1942, Elena Poniatowska is not only one of the most important WHY LEONORA Mexican and Latin American journalists and writers—she Leonora (2011), Poniatowska’s most recent novel, is also a living witness of her country’s history. She has was published by Seix Barral, the publisher that awarded spent six decades located at the center of an artistic and her the “Premio Biblioteca Breve 2011.” It is based on intellectual world of enormous variety and complexity, the life of Anglo-Mexican artist Leonora Carrington and she has chosen to describe it and celebrate it in her (1917-2011), one of the most original representatives journalistic and literary work. She has received the most of surrealism in painting and sculpture who was also a important awards in her country and abroad for her vast distinguished writer. The novel is based on information literary production. The work of many excellent critics gathered through more than fifty years of friendship be- in the United States, England, and Spain since the 1980s, tween the two women, special interviews with the artist especially feminists, has joined work done in Mexico, and many of her friends and relatives, and impressive producing a wealth of high-quality textual analysis and research, as the bibliography included at the end of the commentary that covers a wide range of critical approach- book reveals. Leonora Carrington died a few months after es. Great writers invent worlds, and the breadth and quality the release of Leonora in Mexico (which she never read, of criticism on Poniatowska shows how big and textured according to its author). The many obituaries and elegies her world is. published after her death underscore the high esteem in To teach the work of Elena Poniatowska is to place which the Mexican and international artistic community some extraordinary facts and values before the minds of held her work; they also address the fascinating aspects of young people: Carrington’s life as a woman who defied parental authority, artistic co-optation, and subjection to normative systems, • The power of a direct language imbued with the rich oral suffering the consequences of such rebelliousness with qualities of popular culture that is also impassioned and amazing fortitude. Even before her death, Mexico had often poetic. The creative mimetism of Poniatowska’s claimed her as a Mexican artist and cultural icon, in spite ear as she recreates her subjects’ voices. of the very private life she led. • The ability to write in a variety of registers and ignore the limitations of genres. THE BIOGRAPHY, THE PLOT • The moral and political dimensions of the author’s Leonora was born in Lancashire to a very wealthy attention to the urban poor, workers, servants, peasants, industrialist and his Irish wife. The child rebelled against children, and especially the women in these groups. her family’s authority and the obligations her social class The limitations, ambivalences, and contradictions of imposed on her. She identified with the freedom of
Diálogo Articles 11 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014 animals and declared that she was a mare. She began moved to Mexico City. There, the marriage disintegrated. painting when she was very young, giving evidence of Leonora, dejected at first, found a new home in the group an unusual talent. She was enrolled in one, then another of European exiled painters, photographers, and writers. fine Catholic boarding school, but was expelled from each Especially important for her was the friendship of the great due to her disobedience and inability to follow the social Spanish-Mexican surrealist painter, Remedios Varo. In the expectations of the nuns for a female child. Her distressed midst of this new group, Leonora met her second husband, parents sent her to a third school located in Florence for Imre Emerico Weisz (1912-2007), known as Chiki. upper class English girls, where she continued to defy the Weisz, a Hungarian Jew who grew up in a hospice established order. There, Leonora could study the great because of his mother’s widowhood and poverty, photo- Italian painters and sculptors of the late Medieval Ages graphed the Spanish Civil War along with Robert Capa and and Renaissance, traveling to Padua, Venice, and Rome. Gerda Taro, and developed most of their photographs.12 After two more schools in Paris, where she visited the Like Ernst, Weisz had been imprisoned by the Nazis and Louvre frequently with her mother, her father yielded to managed to escape. Leonora and Chiki had two sons, her desire to study painting in London. There, she met Gabriel and Pablo. For Leonora, becoming a mother Max Ernst (1891-1976), already a famous painter whose became the greatest source of happiness. She devoted surrealist work impressed her deeply. She went to France herself to her sons and her art. She painted with dogged with him and became his lover, despite the fact that he determination, and achieved international recognition was married and 26 years her senior. In 1938, she and after her exhibition in New York in 1947. Leonora died Ernst went to live in the countryside, buying a house on May 26, 2011. with money sent by Leonora’s mother, Maurie. After two These are all biographical facts. For them to become a years, Ernst was detained first by French authorities and coherent novelistic montage, an alchemic transformation later by the Gestapo; subsequently, Leonora fell apart and is necessary, involving the situation of scenes in time and lost her mind. space, the creation of dialogue, the imagination of each Leonora’s parents, naturally, tried to save their daugh- character, encounter, displacement, change of setting, ter. They maneuvered to get her out of occupied France setback, or accomplishment.13 and into Santander, Spain, where they had her placed in a psychiatric hospital that treated her with a potent drug THE NOVEL called Cardiazol. The medication, injected several times In spite of the length of the book—almost 500 pages against Leonora’s will, produced convulsions and left her divided into 56 chapters—it can be read with ease. It begins body dejected and unable to control itself. One day, when with the protagonist’s early childhood and ends with the she was better, she was allowed to travel to Madrid with friendship between the elderly artist and a young fictional a nurse, where she ran into Renato Leduc (1897-1986), character, Pepita. A street smart and trendy student, she the Mexican journalist, poet, and diplomat whom she had is in awe of the painter and becomes a close companion, met in Paris as a friend of Pablo Picasso. Leduc asked her driving her to the zoo, or simply walking with her around to go to Lisbon and look for him in the Mexican embassy. the city, affirming her worth and recognizing that the end Coincidentally, her father Harold Carrington’s representa- of her life is near. tives wanted her in Estoril, Lisbon, so that they could send There are lyrical passages throughout the novel, her to South Africa to another hospital. Watched constantly especially in relation to the time Carrington and Ernst by them, she was taken to the Portuguese capital, where enjoyed in Saint Martin d’ Ardèche, where they painted, she managed to escape to the Mexican embassy and receive walked, swam in the river, produced and drank wine diplomatic protection. Renato and Leonora were soon copiously, and loved each other and their neighbors. The married, in part to facilitate her immigration to the U.S. At vertiginous ordeals Leonora endures read as a novel of the same time, Ernst and many other famous artists were adventure, while her connection with great painters and receiving help from the millionaire and patron of the arts writers of her time produces an astonishing spotlight on Peggy Guggenheim, who had become Ernst’s new lover. 20th century artistic avant-garde talent—in Paris and New They all waited several weeks in Lisbon before traveling by York: André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Paul Eluard, Pablo ship to New York, but after two years Leonora and Renato Picasso, Herbert Read, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí,
12 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
Joan Miró, and later in Mexico: Luis Buñuel, Remedios between humans and Nature. Thus, reason and imagination Varo, Kati Horna, Octavio Paz, César Moro, Wolfgang become one and the same, something visible in Leonora Paalen, Alice Rahon, Günther Gerzso, and many more. Carrington’s vast artistic output. Chapter 15, titled “La resaca” or “The Hangover,” deals with The narrative voice also focuses on the Irish ori- the consequences of Leonora’s intoxication after drinking a gin of Leonora’s mother, Maurie, and her nanny, Mary bottle of wine because Ernst had temporarily disappeared Kavanaugh, who entertained the children with tales of from her side (127). The nightmarish and grotesque scenes magical creatures and otherworldly lore. Catholic tra- prefigure Leonora’s madness and resemble a movie by Luis ditions are part of that heritage, with a more complex Buñuel or Antonin Artaud. spiritual background than that of the Anglican faith. In Leonora is similar to Tinísima and Querido Diego, her early job of explaining the world to Leonora, “Nanny” where the tension between a lived event and the imagina- is analogous to the nameless Indian nanny in Balún Canán tion of how it unfolded is part of the reading experience (Nine Guardians, 1957), by Rosario Castellanos—perhaps and can lead to interesting considerations.14 The author’s the Mexican writer whose work Poniatowska has discussed ability to render credible a character of powerful talents most eloquently and admiringly.17 Both surrogate mothers, and passions, willing to go to any length to remain faithful the Irish and the Tzeltal (Maya), inhabit the mythical world to what she saw as true, is part of the strength of Leonora. where a child’s imagination thrives, and both are at the The protagonist can certainly be seen as a feminist heroine same time needed and devalued by the ruling class. Both when one considers her capacity for self-affirmation before women are also eventually rejected by the children they her domineering father, a wealthy and authoritarian man once lovingly raised. who tried to keep his daughter under rigid control. On The focalization of the narrative on Irishness in the the other hand, it is true that, like Modotti in Tinísima, mother and caretaker accomplishes two objectives: one is to Leonora willingly depends on some men to take important establish a maternal lineage that becomes more important steps in her life. than the paternal one; and secondly, to create a cultural backdrop that is not only different from Englishness, but a LEONORA IN LEONORA contestation of its hegemonic assumptions. Critic Beatriz Part of the fictionalization of Leonora consists of Mariscal, in an article on Leonora subtitled “The Phantoms exaggerating certain traits that amount to a psychological of Liberty,” stresses the liberating role of Nanny’s tales: study of the woman painter. Early in the book, the narrator “Los cuentos tradicionales de su nana, irlandesa como stresses Leonora’s love of dogs and horses, which she shares su madre, y sus sueños, la ayudaron a escapar de una with her father. He in turn believes his daughter resembles realidad que la sofocaba.”18 As with Leonora’s femininity/ him in personality more than his three male children animality, the double maternal Irish roots foreground the and is proud of her strong character. But when she rebels unconscious as the source of survival, redemption, and against him, he destroys her dearest toy, the rocking horse ultimately art. Here is a dialogue between Nanny and “Tartaro,” something she never forgets. The stage is set for Leonora, the young child: Leonora’s deep identification with the world of animals, especially in their freedom and strength. She chooses to –Parece que atraes a los sidhes. conflate femininity with animality, and finds a creative –Sí, quisiera que jugaran conmigo force in that nexus.15 Her power as an artist, woman, and toda la vida. human being will always reside there. Animals, real and –Si lees, Prim, nunca vas a estar sola. imagined, will populate her work and her life. The narrator Te acompañarán los sidhes. (12)19 starts Chapter 19, just before war breaks out, with these words: “A Leonora nada le atañe, Max y ella no son hombre Later, Leonora’s maternal grandmother tells her that y mujer, sino pájaro y yegua.” (154)16 Far from falling into she is more of a Celt, claiming her for both the maternal the trap of a masculine division of reason and feeling along and Gaelic side of the family, with its rich imaginative gender lines, the fictional Leonora assumes the implications world. In a beautiful testimony written for El País, “Leonora of rejecting an enlightenment version of Reason in favor of Carrington o la rebeldía,” Poniatowska spoke about her an understanding of a world where there is no separation dear friend who had just died:
Diálogo Articles 13 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014
Con su sentido del humor, destrozó to the surrealist credo, by which insanity is a necessary cualquier imposición, hasta la de ser component of the artistic life. The word “locura”, mad- surrealista. Más que surrealista, su ness, appears nineteen times in the novel’s manuscript, mundo interior fue celta y su obra está sometimes especially associated with surrealist women. muy cercana al mundo de su infancia, (91) Leonora seemed to suffer and tolerate madness, un mundo que nada tiene que ver and sometimes she welcomed it and cultivated it. Her con la lógica, un mundo inesperado own son tells her: “… tu angustia es tu aliada, es la que de poesía que es el de los sidhes, los te hace pintar …” (427)24 After a conversation between little people que para nosotros, los Leonora and Ernst, as she was about to leave New York mexicanos, son los chaneques que for Mexico, the narrator explains: nos acompañan, jalan la comisura de nuestros labios para que sonria- Santander la transformó, la acompaña mos y nos desatan las agujetas de los y la despierta cada madrugada, está zapatos.20 presente siempre, al alcance de su mano, sobre la almohada … Él [Ernst] This assertion is made about the real Leonora no puede retenerla porque ella conoce Carrington, but seems to stem from the novel and its la locura, no la idealizada por André spirit. Two pages before the novel ends, dolphins speak to Breton ni la que predican los genios, the great artist as they cavort in the aquarium, in and out sino la que puede palpar todos los días of the water: “Qué audaz has sido, Leonora, qué grandes . . . (281-282)25 tus batallas.” (494)21 Leonora became a mother of two sons, and she gave Santander is the city where she was committed to her father’s name to the first one. (349) The experience a fearsome psychiatric hospital, representative of fascist of motherhood becomes fully connected to her painting. Spain. As Irene Matthews pointed out in a 1995 essay “Pinta con fervor, porque dentro de un momento tendrá on Poniatowska’s photographic texts, “… she produces que atender a su hijo. Tomarlo en brazos es un instinto meaning both from a particular, exclusive, framework, natural, pintar también lo es.” (357)22 We find an echo and from the cumulative, metonymical effect of 'simple' to this strong assertion of the narrative in a quotation contiguity.”26 of Carrington’s words by Mexican critic Elena Urrutia: The central figure of the surrealist movement, André Breton (1896-1966), is among the many friends Leonora Leonora describe su maternidad como met through Max Ernst in the novel. In real life, he was “algo estremecedor”: “Fue una gran trained as a psychiatrist, and spoke often about the special conmoción. No tenía ni idea de lo que art available to psychiatric patients. In Nadja (1928), his era el instinto maternal. No tenía ni most famous book, the protagonist is an attractive woman idea de que iba a poseerme un instinto who turns out to be mentally ill and living in a sanitarium. maternal tremendamente fuerte, no Leonora met Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) in Breton’s house, había tenido ningún indicio de ello and he said of her that she was “la más importante artista antes de que nacieran mis hijos, pero mujer.” (91)27 The well known encounter between Dalí and fue algo que emergió de las profun- the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), in didades …”23 1929 produced an important discussion of Dalí’s “paranoid critical method” in the creation of art. The novel hints at the connection between madness Surrealism contained a serious level of theorization and creative genius in Leonora, a recurring theme both of the connections between art and madness, in addition in science and art history. Having suffered a mental to the mostly playful proclamations. One of the Mexican breakdown of painful consequences in 1940, Leonora elegies written in 2011 on Carrington quotes Breton’s could have thought that psychosis was too destructive assessment of Leonora: to produce art. Nevertheless, she was deeply connected
14 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
André Breton, mítico fundador del geography. The Mexican government commissioned her to movimiento artístico con el que paint a mural on the Maya vision of creation, based on the tanto se ha caracterizado la obra Popol Vuh, for the Museum of Anthropology. Her travel de Carrington—el Surrealismo—, to Chiapas was an encounter with a mysterious world se expresaba de ella en cuanto que that appeared to her as Maya and Celtic at once. (437) “contempló el mundo real con los ojos According to the Brazilian art critic and psychoanalist de la locura y a la locura del mundo con Jussara Teixeira, in her commentary on Leonora: un cerebro lúcido.” (my emphasis)28 Eleonora [sic] descubre y bebe a This important statement rings true in relation to México en todos sus sentidos, en su the fictionalized Leonora. The displacement and suffering poesía. Si la relación entre México y of mental illness gave her a paradoxical hold on life and el surrealismo se da por laberintos del a way of seeing the absurdity and destruction of World sueño, pintar un muro, un mural maya War II and fascism, which she opposed with all her might … en el museo de antropología titula- even in her most irrational moments. Leonora, fictional do “El mundo mágico de los mayas,” and real, came to terms with her own mental fragility and se ofrece como una clarividencia.31 turned it into her strength. When the painter was in her nineties, she told her interviewer, Mexican poet Homero And Octavio Avendaño Trujillo, in his article “Ya Aridjis: “Sí, soy ambidiestra, como los locos. Pero ahora no existen surrealistas” (There are no More Surrealists), estoy más loca que cuando estuve en la casa de locos.”29 quotes an answer Leonora gave him during an interview: The narrator in the novel makes clear the child can draw “Mi corazón está con mis hijos y aquí, en México.”32 with both hands, and her teachers, the nuns, believe she In sum, the novel invites the reader’s attention to must have a mental disease. (31)30 Leonora’s complex character as a woman in touch with Readers of Elena Poniatowska are used to narratives the natural world, especially the world of animals, with in which some foreign women are saved by their art, an art whom she identifies. She rejects paternal authority to the that is deeply connected with their voluntary embracing point of being in complicity with her mother and nanny, of Mexico. Tinísima is the most important piece, but the and through those deep connections she receives the transformation of Angelina Beloff in Querido Diego also mythical stories from Ireland, along with Catholicism, hints at the future biographical facts of her success as a as a pre-modern cultural background. While Leonora’s painter and as a Mexican national by choice. Mariana catastrophic nervous breakdown lasts only a few months, Yampolsky (1925-2002), author of the elegant photographs the novel emphasizes at a slant the creativity of the artist contained in several books produced in collaboration with and its rootedness in her troubled inner world. Leonora’s Poniatowska, was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, but relationship with Mexico, unlike that of other foreign found her home in Mexico and photographed its people, artists about whose lives and work Poniatowska has roads, towns, and fields. Parts of the texts remark on written, and unlike that of Poniatowska herself, is not the alliance these women have made with their adopted univocally a loving one, especially in the early years in country, just like Poniatowska, the child born in France to her new home country. All this gives us a complex, even parents of Polish and Mexican origin, will grow to identify conflictive character to work with in classroom discus- with a certain Mexico and love it through her writing. sions, allowing us to deepen our vision of the work of The relationship of the fictional Leonora to Mexico is Poniatowska at large. more complex. She despised the noise and falsehood of the In many ways Leonora tells a truth about the great folkloric Mexico represented by Diego Rivera and Frida Anglo-Mexican painter Leonora Carrington that cannot Kahlo’s parties (296), the Mexico her husband Renato fit inside a mere biography. Leduc inhabited and enjoyed. Moreover, she rejected muralism as a state-sponsored art. On the other hand, LEONORA AND STUDENTS Leonora made a commitment to remain in Mexico and In this section I present some concluding thoughts became fascinated by many aspects of its history and from the two papers written on Leonora, and I summarize
Diálogo Articles 15 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014 the way the seminar at large saw the novel, including in preguntarse por qué la búsqueda relation to previously read texts. de las protagonistas por su libertad Danielle Seltzer, a senior and special major in Latin nunca termina en un final agradable. American Studies, wrote an essay entitled “En busca de algo familiar: el sentido de pertenencia en Leonora” Yamilet seems to be asking a rhetorical question. (Searching for the Familiar: Sense of Belonging in As the title of her paper suggests, she gives weight to Leonora,” April 30th, 2013). Danielle asserts that Leonora the wandering nature of Poniatowska’s women protag- looked for a sense of belonging in the many people she onists, as if their quest for freedom were inscribed in met outside the family, and that even when Max Ernst their intercontinental displacements in some cases, or was in some way responsible for Leonora’s breakdown, he in a constant change of centers of gravity within Mexico, also introduced her to surrealism, a realm which resolves as in the case of Jesusa Palancares. She then quotes Juan the contradictions between the world of dreams and Bruce-Novoa’s study of four feminine protagonists in the outside reality, according to the “Surrealist Manifesto.” novels of Poniatowska: Lilus Kikus in the short novel of This, Danielle implies, is a stepping-stone toward healing the same title, Mariana in La flor de lis, Jesusa in Hasta no and perhaps even finding a new sense of belonging. She verte, Jesús mío, and Tina Modotti in Tinísima. The critic, then elaborates on the way living in Mexico, meeting a true cited by Yamilet, concludes, referring to all four women: friend and colleague in Remedios Varo, and the stability that allows her to paint and raise a family give Leonora A pesar del ambiente represivo, esta some respite; yet no source of vitality equals her art. mujer logra el momentáneo placer Since there were no critical articles published in de sentirse viva en y con el mundo academic journals on Leonora, Danielle relied on book —placer erótico en esencia y por eso reviews and the work of critics whose work covers a wide peligroso—aunque luego esos agentes span of Poniatowska’s writing. For example, she quoted sociales le cobran duro su violación Beth Jörgensen’s discussion of the protagonist of La flor del tabú. (77) de lis (1988), and how “identification with the father has traditionally provided the growing child with the Yamilet’s insight and her application of his perspec- means of entry into the outside world of work, public tive to Leonora would have pleased the esteemed late critic, life, and public recognition.”33 Suggesting that because of who died a year before the publication of the novel. She her disconnection with the father figure Leonora must concludes her paper with questions and considerations: search for the maternal in her life, she concludes: “Al fin, Leonora llegó a ser la mujer que quería ser, es decir, logró ¿Qué se puede inferir de la futura buscarse un lugar. Sin embargo, es importante establecer posición de la mujer si cada vez que que su búsqueda queda abierta, incompleta y sin con- intenta desafiar su posición marginal clusión concreta: no la termina creándose.” (6)34 I believe termina sola o infeliz? ¿Vale la pena Danielle is pointing to the high price paid by Leonora for en ese caso luchar o darse por her Faustian bargain as she cut all ties with her English vencida y aceptar la “felicidad” que upper-class network and roots: father, brothers, and family asignan las normas sociales a las friends, and indeed, with her country. Happiness and mujeres obedientes y abnegadas? true freedom don’t seem to be within Leonora’s reach. Cualquiera que sean las respuestas a Even more skeptical was Yamilet Medina, a junior estas preguntas, una cosa sí sabemos: and Spanish major, in her paper “En busca de libertad: las mujeres sobre las que escribe el viaje de Leonora” (“In Search of Freedom: Leonora’s Elena Poniatowska demuestran ser Journey,” April 30th, 2013). Yamilet asks: valientes y decididas. A pesar de sus defectos individuales, su tenacidad y ¿Existe algún otro personaje, aparte perseverancia ante toda oposición, de Jesusa, que demuestre una inde- sea considerada ingenuidad o pendencia casi total? Es interesante valentía, sirven como ejemplos de
16 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
características que podrían ayudar que algunas veces representa lo que a guiar la causa de las mujeres la autora quisiera que hubiera sido su marginalizadas por una sociedad madre, según Beizer. De esta manera, patriarcal. (7, 8)35 Cabritas no sólo es una reflexión de la vida de Poniatowska; también está Since Leonora was the last novel read in the course, ligada a su deseo de destacar mujeres students had considerable resources for comparative anal- poco convencionales que a pesar de ysis. Tayler Tucker, who as a Spanish major developed one sus dificultades e imperfecciones ofre- of her seminar papers on Tinísima into a 25-page essay as cen un modelo de resistencia y (auto) the basis for her comprehensive examination, noticed that empoderamiento femenino. (6)40 in Leonora the woman’s body is less focalized than Tina’s. Thinking of the French feminists’ injunction to “write Nancy helps us in different ways in this paragraph, the body” and from the body, Tayler sees Leonora as a establishing one of the most important angles in which character more constrained by her social origin and less one can see Poniatowska as a feminist author, as she in touch with her body’s freedom than Tina, suggesting claims that imperfect women who seek their own em- that perhaps class accounts for that difference.36 powerment can be legitimately held up as models. In A mapping out of Poniatowska’s fictional women addition, Nancy underscores the similarity between characters problematized our discussion, taking it from the author and her biographical subjects, which can be what Leonora does not do to what it does, as in Yamilet’s extrapolated to biographical novels such as Leonora. She concluding paragraph. “Cada amor es distinto,”(493) quoted Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez’s review of Las siete “Each love is different,” says Leonora in answering Pepita’s cabritas: “Poniatowska’s seven subjects are scandalous, assumption on the love of Max as the greatest in her life. provocative women whose greatest sin was to go against “Each book is different” could be Poniatowska’s answer the grain, willful women who accomplished artistically to a hypothetical question about the text she loves best. despite their society,”41 an assertion that we may take as a Several critics of Poniatowska’s works, particularly very sharp formulation of one more trait that Poniatowska Beth Jörgensen in her study of Tinísima, have pointed and the painter have in common. to Poniatowska’s own presence in the lives she has fic- This is relevant as I bring this article to an end, tionalized.37 Seminar student Nancy Haro, a senior and because a final seminar discussion, initiated and led by Spanish major, wrote about this in relation to Las siete students, centered on the way the author is invested in cabritas (2000) in her paper, “La biografía poniatowskiana each one of the books we read and whether she identifies en Las siete cabritas” (Poniatowskan Biography in The more with one or another of her protagonists. Seven Sisters, April 16, 2013).38 Before our first class discussion onLeonora, I gave a Power Point presentation on Carrington’s paintings to La presencia de Poniatowska en las bi- situate her as the real first-rate artist the novel addresses. ografías de Cabritas también pueden Students enjoyed the art and were intrigued by it, but ser parte de lo que Janet Beizer llama immediately contrasted the photographic work of Tina “bio-autography” definida como Modotti with the art of Leonora Carrington as belonging “the writing of a self through the to two different worlds. Modotti’s connection with the representation of another.”39 Según social struggles of the Mexican and Bolshevik revolutions el argumento de Beizer, una biografía and the global workers’ movement gave her visual art feminista, donde se emplea la idea a different dimension. Even when they understood to de la ‘bio-autografía,' intenta buscar what extent Leonora Carrington’s pictures had opposed a una mujer antepasada que sirva conventional art and affirmed the power of women artists, como modelo femenina en un mun- they missed Poniatowska’s emphasis on novelistic subjects do donde las personas antepasadas a whose lives include a political practice or ways of thinking las que elogiamos siempre han sido directed at ending injustice—not only in terms of gender, masculinas. Es una búsqueda materna but also in terms of economic and social inequality.
Diálogo Articles 17 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014
Later, after a long discussion of Leonora, students ENDNOTES observed that the protagonist was not committed in 1 Elena Poniatowska, “A Question Mark Engraved on her daily life or artistic practice to end social difference, My Eyelids.” Trans. Cynthia Steele. The Writer on Her even when she was concerned about political disasters Work, II. Janet Sternburg, ed. New York: Norton, 1990. in the world and spoke forcefully against anti-semitism. 2 Elena Poniatowska: Mexico’s Daughter. In contrast with Tina Modotti, who sacrificed even her 3 See especially reviews by Beatriz Mariscal (Note 14), art for revolutionary change and lost everything in the Salvador Oropesa (Note 30), and Catherine Wall, “Elena process, they believed Leonora had at least partially held Poniatowska, Leonora.” World Literature Today 85.5 on to her privilege, defending her privacy and security. In (Sept./Oct. 2011): 64-65. Paseo de la Reforma, Amaya’s dedication to the fight for 4 Translated by Claude Fell (Paris: Actes Sud, 2012). equality in Mexico and Ashby’s admiration of her values 5 “The Narrative Vision of Carlos Fuentes” and “Politics did not ring authentic to their ears. Neither Amaya nor and Poetry: The Worlds of Neruda, Paz, and Cardenal." Leonora can completely abandon the trappings of their 6 A description of the Honors Program appears here: own aristocratic class, and this may also be connected
18 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
documentary film directed by Trisha Ziff, The Mexican with us, pull our our lips to make us smile, and untie our Suitcase (2011). shoe laces.” Elena Poniatowska, “Leonora Carrington o 13 Two reviews of Leonora published in leading Mexican la rebeldía” (LC or Rebellion). El País (May 28, 2011). periodicals forcefully devalue its power as a novel. Web. April 2013. Christopher Domínguez Michael’s “Leonora por Elena 21 “How audacious you have been, Leonora, how great Poniatowska” and Roberto Pliego’s “Una yegua desbo- are your battles!" cada” miss important aspects of the fictional craft. That 22 “She paints feverishly, because in a moment she must the first one should also sneer at Poniatowska’s political pay attention to her son. To take him in her arms is a trajectory belies the ideological bend of the critique. The natural instinct, just like painting." title of Pliego’s review echoes the famous essay written by 23 Elena Urrutia, “Leonora Carrington, artista y escrito- Poniatowska on the work of Carlos Fuentes, “Un tropel ra” (LC, artist and writer). Jornada Semanal. Mexico de caballos desbocados,” at the same time as it refers (October 28, 2001). Web. September 2013. to Carrington’s identification with her mare, Winkie. 24 Your anguish is your ally; it is anguish that leads you Letras Libres 148 (abril de 2011) Web and Nexos s/n (1 to paint. de agosto de 2011) Web. April 2013. 25 Santander transformed her, walks with her, wakes her 14 “Elena Poniatowska logra mantener ese difícil equilibrio up each day at dawn, is always present, within reach of entre su capacidad de novelar y los límites que le impone her hand, on her pillow … He [Ernst] can’t keep her, la particular biografía de su protagonista” (EP manages because she knows madness, not the one idealized by to achieve the difficult balance between her capacity to André Breton, nor the one geniuses celebrate, but the write a novel and the limitations imposed by the par- one she can touch every day … ticular biography of her protagonist). Beatriz Mariscal, The original manuscript reads: “La locura la transformó,” “Leonora Carrington según Elena Poniatowska: los or “Madness transformed her.” fantasmas de la libertad.” (Revista de la Universidad de 26 Irene Matthews, “Woman Watching Women, Watching.” México 106 (2012): 65-68). Web. Reinterpreting the Spanish-American Essay: Women 15 Julia Kristeva works on this theme, following Freud, in Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Doris Meyer, her famous book, Powers of Horror: Essay on Abjection ed. (Austin: U of Texas P, 1995), 228. (1982). 27 The most important woman artist. 16 “Nothing fazes Leonora. She and Max are not man 28 AB, mythical founder of Surrealism, the artistic move- and woman, but bird and mare.” These and all other ment that has characterized so completely Carrington’s quotations from the novel are my translations. work, expressed that she had “looked at the world with 17 See Elena Poniatowska’s article “Rosario Castellanos: the eyes of madness, and saw the madness of the world Rostro que ríe, rostro que llora.” Revista canadiense de with a lucid mind.” Juan Carlos Jiménez Abarca, “Soñada estudios hispánicos 14.3 (Primavera 1990): 495-590. fantasía.” Letras de cambio. Suplemento de Culturas de 18 Her dreams and the traditional storytelling of her nanny, Cambio de Michoacán. Nueva época. S/n (junio de 2011). an Irish woman like her mother, helped her escape a He credits Angélica Abelleyra, “La rebeldía como sello” suffocating reality. Mariscal, Ibid. Web. (Suplemento Laberinto de Milenio (28 de mayo de 2011). 19 —It seems that you attract sidhs. 29 Yes, I am ambidextrous like all crazy people, but now —Yes, I wish they would play with me all my life. I am even crazier than when I was in the madhouse. —If you read, Prim, you will never be alone. Sidhs will Homero Aridjis, “Una visita a Leonora Carrington.” always keep you company. Letras libres 151 (julio de 2011): n/p. Web. September 20 “With her sense of humor, she abolished the imposition 15, 2013. of any set of rules, even those of being a surrealist. More 30 Reviewer Salvador Oropesa, having noticed the than surrealist, her interior world was Celtic, and very biographic emphasis of the novel, stresses the author’s closely associated with her childhood, a world that has narrative strategies, as in this paragraph: “Otra novedad nothing to do with logic. It is an unexpected world of está en el intento por parte de Poniatowska, mediante poetry, the world of sidhs, the little people who for us, focalizaciones en diferentes personajes, de explicar el Mexicans, are the same as our chaneques, who are always surrealismo desde dentro mediante asociaciones de
Diálogo Articles 19 Aurora Camacho de Schmidt Volume 17 Number 1 Spring 2014
imágenes ilógicas, la inclusión de sueños y la antro- Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995 (Westport, CT/London: pomorfización de animales a lo Lewis Carroll en una Greenwood Press, 1997). tradición muy anglosajona.” Chasqui 41.1 (May 2012): 38 “Las siete cabritas” is the name of the constellation 223-224. Pleiades, commonly known as “Seven Sisters.” “Siete 31 Eleonora [sic] discovers and drinks up Mexico in all its cabritas” means literally seven goats, and Nora Erro- senses, in its poetry. If the relationship between Mexico Peralta reminds us of the popular expression “más loca and surrealism filters through dream labyrinths, to paint que una cabra” (crazier than a she-goat) in relation to a wall, a Mayan mural in the Anthropology Museum the very unusual women contained in Poniatowska’s titled “The Magic World of the Maya,” contrary to what biographical text. See “Recreando vidas, ¿biografía o the surrealists believed, is an act of clairvoyance. Jussara ficción?:Las siete cabritas de Elena Poniatowska. In La Teixeira, “El surrealismo de la locura”. La otra gaceta. palabra contra el silencio. Op. cit. Gaceta 66 (14 de septiembre de 2012). Web. September 39 Beizer, Janet. Thinking through the Mothers: Reimagining 2013. Women’s Biographies. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2009); 3. 32 My heart is with my sons, and here, in Mexico. Octavio 40 “Poniatowska’s presence in the biographies contained Avendaño Trujillo. “Ya no existen surrealistas.” Letras in Cabritas may also be part of what Janet Beizer calls libres 151 (julio de 2011). Web. September 2013. 'bio-autography' defined as 'the writing of a self through 33 Beth Jörgensen, The Writing of Elena Poniatowska: the representation of another.' According to Beizer’s Engaging Dialogues (Austin, TX: U of Texas P, 1994), argument, a feminist biography in which the concept 126. This, and Jörgensen’s numerous articles on the of 'auto-biography' is applied attempts to look for a Mexican author, became a constant source of insight woman ancestor that may serve as a feminine model in the seminar. in a world where all praised ancestors tend to be male. 34 “In the end, Leonora became the woman she meant It is a maternal search that sometimes represents what to be, that is to say, she found a place for herself. It is the author would have liked her own mother to be, important, however, to establish that her search remains according to Beizer. In this way, Cabritas is not only a open-ended, incomplete and without a concrete con- reflection of the life of Poniatowska: it is also linked to clusion: it does not end in self-creation." her desire to foreground non-conventional women who, 35 “What can one conclude about the future position of in spite of their difficulties and imperfections, offer a women if each time she defies her marginal position model of feminine resistance and self-empowerment." she ends up alone or unhappy? Is it worth struggling 41 Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez, “Review of Las siete or should one give up and accept the “happiness” cabritas, Elena Poniatowska.” Hispania 85.1 (Mar 2002): social norms assign to obedient or selfless women? 87-89. Whatever the answers to these questions are, we know 42 One more masterpiece, Salvador Oropesa, op. cit. one thing: the women Elena Poniatowska writes about demonstrate valor and decisiveness. In spite of their in- WORKS CITED dividual shortcomings, their tenacity and perseverance Aridjis, Homero. “Una visita a Leonora Carrington.” Letras before opposition (may those be construed as naiveté libres 151 (julio 2011): n/p. Web. September 2013. or braveness), serve as examples of traits that could Avendaño Trujillo, Octavio. “Ya no existen surrealistas.” help the cause of women marginalized by a patriarchal Letras libres 151 (julio 2011). Web. September 2013. society.” Bruce-Novoa, Juan. “Elena Poniatowska y la generación de 36 Class discussion and personal communication. medio siglo: Lilus, Jesusa, Angelina, Tina … y la er- 37 “Fotoescritura: Biografía y fotografía en Tinísima”. In rancia sin fin.” (EP and the Mid-Century Generation: La palabra contra el silencio: Elena Poniatowska ante Lilus, Jesusa, Angelina, Tina … and the endless la crítica. (Words Against Silence: EP and Literary wandering.) América sin nombre 11-12 (diciembre Criticism). Nora Erro-Peralta y Magdalena Maiz-Peña, 2008): 70-78. Web. April 28, 2013. Eds. (México: ERA, 2013), 283-286. Originally in Domínguez Michael, Christopher. “Leonora, por Elena English, “Light Writing: Biography and Photography in Poniatowska.” Letras libres 148 (abril 2011) Web. Tinísima,” Kristine Ibsen, ed. The Other Mirror: Women’s April 2013.
20 Articles Diálogo Reading Elena Poniatowska's Leonora in an Undergraduate Seminar
Erro-Peralta, Nora. “Recreando vidas, ¿biografía o ficción?: Las siete cabritas de Elena Poniatowska." La palabra contra el silencio: Elena Poniatowska ante la crítica. Nora Erro-Peralta y Magdalena Maiz-Peña, Eds. (México: ERA, 2013): 329-343. Jörgensen, Beth. “Fotoescritura: Biografía y fotografía en Tinísima.” La palabra contra el silencio: Elena Poniatowska ante la crítica. Nora Erro-Peralta y Magdalena Maiz-Peña, Eds. (México: ERA, 2013): 267-286. Mariscal, Beatriz. “Leonora Carrington según Elena Poniatowska: los fantasmas de la libertad.” Revista de la Universidad de México 106 (2012): 65-68. Web. September 2013. Matthews, Irene. “Woman Watching Women, Watching.” Reinterpreting the Spanish-American Essay: Women Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Doris Meyer, Ed. (Austin: U of Texas P, 1995): 227-241. Oropesa, Salvador. Leonora. Chasqui 41.1 (May 2012): 223-224. Pliego, Roberto. “Una yegua desbocada.” Nexos s/n (August 1, 2011).Web. April 2013. Poniatowska, Elena. Leonora. México y Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2011. —. and Amanda Holmes, photographs. Mexican Color. Translated by Aurora Camacho de Schmidt (Vermont: Verve Editions, 1999). —. Nothing, Nobody, Voices of the Mexican Earthquake. Translated by Arthur Schmidt and Aurora Camacho de Schmidt (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1995). —. “Leonora Carrington o la rebeldía.” El País (28 de mayo de 2011). Web. —. “A Question Mark Engraved on My Eyelids.” Mexican Writers on Writing. Trans. Cynthia Steele. The Writer on Her Work, II. Janet Sternburg, Ed. New York: Norton, 1990. Teixeira, Jussara. “El surrealismo de la locura.” La Otra Gaceta. Gaceta 66 (14 de septiembre de 2012). Web. September 2013. Urrutia, Elena. “Leonora Carrington, artista y escritora.” Jornada Semanal. Mexico (28 de octubre de 2001). Web. September 2013. Wall, Catherine E. “Elena Poniatowska, Leonora.” World Literature Today 85.5 (Sept./Oct. 2011): 64-65.
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